Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274)
advocated by
Martin Palmer
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'The most hopeful people in the world are the young and the drunk. The first because they have little experience of failure, and the second because they have succeeded in drowning theirs.'
Thomas Aquinas was the greatest scholar of the medieval period. His unfinished
Summa Theologica (1266-73) managed to find a way of reconciling Faith, in the form of Christian theology, with Reason, in the form of Aristotelian philosophy.
Faith and Reason had often been considered incompatible but Aquinas argued that all human understanding was ultimately based on what had been revealed by God but that it was necessary for humans to have rational thought in order to understand God's revelations.
He felt reason could lead us to an understanding of God but maintained that this was not the only path. Those who lacked philosophical gifts but were steadfast in their faith could come to understand God's existence through divine revelation.
The greater part of Aquinas' writings are theological, but there are many strictly philosophical works within his corpus, such as
On Being and Essence,
On the Principles of Nature,
On the Eternity of the World and his commentaries on Aristotle.
Aquinas was interested in metaphysics and the study of being. He concluded that although humans could never make a direct study of God, through the simple fact of their being they could deduce, through reason, that there must be a creator who had created them.
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ÌýListen to Martin Palmer say why you should vote for Thomas Aquinas
Martin Palmer
Martin Palmer is a Theologian and Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture. Martin is an Anglican lay preacher, an ordained Taoist priest, a Sikh elder, and holds several other honorary religious positions. He is the author of many books on religious topics including The Sacred History of Britain and has edited the Times World Religions. He is also one of the foremost translators of ancient Chinese texts, having published translations on the Tao Te Ching, I Ching, Chuang Tzu, and Kuan Yin.
